Deadline Friday for tower closing at Punta Gorda airport

Commercial air service to Charlotte County facility may hang in the balance.

By MICHAEL POLLICK

Punta Gorda Airport officials expect to learn Friday whether the Federal Aviation Administration will shut down the control tower operation at the airport.

The budget-cutting announcement, originally expected Monday, was postponed along with those on 188 other towers, while the FAA weighs input from people concerned about their regions.

The job cuts and the resulting tower closings could happen as soon as April 7.

That has sent tourism and government officials scurrying to get their airports off the hit list.

If the tower funding gets axed, Punta Gorda's only commercial carrier, Allegiant Air, will have to decide whether to keep serving 11 cities out of the airport.

"We are trying to figure out how they made the decision to just cut funding," said Michael Mahaffey, a spokesman for Congressman Tom Rooney, R-Okeechobee, whose district includes all of Charlotte County, part of Lee County and part of Manatee County.

"It seems like another case where the administration is making sequestration cuts more painful than they have to in order to make a point," Mahaffey said.

"The final list was delayed until the FAA could review concerns that were raised," said James W. Parish, assistant executive director at the Charlotte County Airport Authority, which runs Punta Gorda Airport.

At stake is more than just the hotel occupancy rate in Charlotte County.

Allegiant is also important to Fort Myers and Sarasota, said Lorah Steiner, Charlotte County tourism director.

"I'm waiting for someone to say 'Your flights are affected,' or 'Your flights are not affected.'"

Travelers also are concerned about budget cuts at the Transportation Security Administration. When layoffs get phased in this spring, they are more likely to slow traffic at larger airports.

Steiner worries about the trickle-down effect.

"Travel is already difficult," she said. "If travel becomes too onerous, people will think, 'Maybe I will not fly.'"

The FAA send out a warning letter on March 5 to Punta Gorda Airport management along with all the other airports on the cut list. That letter indicated that the effects on the local economy of shutting a tower were not a consideration.

"The FAA is unable to consider local community impact -- that does not affect the national interest," J. David Grizzle, chief operating officer at the FAA's air traffic organization, stated in the letter.

The decision, at least initially, was that the agency would stop paying for tower personnel at airports that have fewer than 150,000 total operations and fewer than 10,000 commercial operations.

Punta Gorda and nearly 100 other airports that fall below that level of service rely on privatized air traffic control services from RVA Robinson Aviation Inc. of Oklahoma City, Okla. An RVA spokesman declined comment on the possible tower closings.

At the Charlotte County Chamber of Commerce, no question is more important than whether Allegiant stays or goes.